


Professor Pankratz's Musical Menagerie

by sleepyxcoffee



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Immortal Jaskier | Dandelion, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:07:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27387658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepyxcoffee/pseuds/sleepyxcoffee
Summary: “You’ve heard of the piano. You’ve heard of the harpsichord. Now meet the wheelharp,” Professor Pankratz crowed. In front of his desk, there was something vaguely cylindrical and vaguely waist-high covered by a plain white cloth. With a flourish, Professor Pankratz whipped off the cloth, revealing… a barrel? With keys? And strings?Or, Professor Julian Pankratz has acquired a strange collection of musical instruments over his several centuries of existing, and his students don't quite know what to make of him.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 16
Kudos: 243





	Professor Pankratz's Musical Menagerie

It was 2020, and Oxenfurt Academy was still the most renowned academic institution in the country.

Which was why when Maja Andrzejczak received her offer to study Natural Sciences there, she was over the moon. The elective modules weren’t bad either - Musical Acoustics seemed good, if not directly related to Natsci. Maja was a musician at heart, and a scientist by necessity. Music didn’t get you a job these days unless you were a prodigy, which Maja wasn’t, but it didn’t mean she had to give it up completely. Musical Acoustics seemed like a fun module. Music and all that, but with a bit of physics thrown in. Her favourite art, and her favourite science.

Halfway through her first week, she had her first ever Musical Acoustics lecture with one Professor J. Pankratz. Which, unfortunately, it seemed she was going to be late for, because the Biochemistry I lecturer overran by ten minutes, and the music building was on the  _ opposite side _ of the campus. Maja was quite sure she trampled several innocent passersby and possibly a cat in her frantic sprint to get to the music building in time, if the annoyed grumblings and yowling were any indication.

She darted into the room just as a man with streaks of grey through his mop of brown hair and neatly trimmed beard - in his early forties at most - walked around his desk. Immediately, Maja dove into the nearest empty seat - the one right across the professor’s desk. Lovely. “Right - hello there, you’re just in time - let’s get started, folks. Professor Julian Pankratz, at your service, and this is Musical Acoustics.” Maja droned out the first few minutes of Professor Pankratz’s speech as she frantically dug through her bag for the correct notebooks, and, most importantly, her coloured pens.

“...we all know how sound is made. For example, with a violin -” Professor Pankratz produced a violin out of seemingly nowhere, and Maja leaned forwards in interest. She had played the violin since she was about two, and the sudden appearance of one was enough to get her to abandon her pens. “- the sound is made by the bow -” Here, Professor Pankratz set the bow against the strings. “- moving across the strings.” He set the violin down. “Of course, that’s just the basics of bowing. Sound is determined by so many other factors, such as the height of the bridge and the material of the body. This Strad, for example, is going to sound very different to a hundred oren beginner’s violin. Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to why?”

Maja nearly fell out of her seat. “You have a Stradivarius,” she squeaked in wonderment. Professor Pankratz gave her a vaguely amused look.

“Amongst others, yes.” Maja shrinked back, eyes wide. She hadn’t  _ meant _ for Professor Pankratz to actually hear her. She twisted her hands in excitement as Professor Pankratz played a few scales on the Stradivarius. It sounded  _ beautiful _ and Maja would absolutely kill to get her hands on one.

(Little did Maja know that Professor Pankratz’s Stradivarius violin was the least of the strange and wonderful instruments she would become acquainted with in her studies.)

Their next lecture, Maja actually arrived on time, by virtue of the Biochemistry I lecturer finishing  _ early _ . Early, in fact. So early that no one was in the lecture hall except for Professor Pankratz himself. He was sitting at his desk, surrounded by several precarious piled stacks of paper, and what seemed to be a… weird recorder-type woodwind instrument next to his desktop. There was a half-full coffee mug by his mousepad with the words “WORLD’S #1 BARD” printed on the side.

That was funny. It fit with Pankratz’s character, at least.

Maja strode up to him determinedly. “Sir,” she said.

Professor Pankratz looked up and smiled at her kindly. “Why, Maja, isn’t it?” Maja nodded.

“Sir, is it alright if I ask you a question?” Professor Pankratz laughed. He kicked back his wheelie chair, spreading his arms dramatically.

“You just have, my dearest Maja, but you’re welcome to another if your heart so desires.” He was an eclectic professor, for sure, from the rainbow suits he wore to the strangely unidentifiable lilt to his accent - like somebody who was a bit too well-travelled, and had picked up bits of accents here and there.

Maja waved in the general direction of… Professor Pankratz. There was just a lot to him. “I wanted to ask where you acquired the Stradivarius, sir. I’ve heard they’re near impossible to find.”

“Oh, the violin!” Professor Pankratz exclaimed. “Yes, it’s a lovely old thing, isn’t it? Four centuries old, if I recall correctly. Manufactured by the Stradivaris of Novigrad themselves! I got a lovely discount on it, you see, because Geralt - the witcher, I’m sure you’ve met him - helped them with a little necrophage problem they had been having in one of the forests they get their wood from - nasty little buggers, by the way, rotfiends smell terrible - and in return they gave me a very generous discount on the violin. It had been going for two thousand crowns, but they knocked off five hundred for me.”

“...Sir?” Maja asked cautiously, frowning. “But where did you buy it, sir?”

“Hierarch Square,” the strange professor replied cheerfully. “The Stradivari family set up shop where Vivaldi’s bank used to be. It’s gone now, of course - some museum’s taken its place.”

Hierarch Square. The… historic site? Confused, Maja stepped away. It seemed she was unlikely to get a straight answer out of Professor Pankratz just yet. “Thank you, sir.” Maja scampered to the same seat she had taken last lecture and set out her stationary. Professor Pankratz was a strange man indeed. Perhaps the violin had been illegally acquired? That would explain Pankratz’s strange story.

Maja chose not to dwell on it, and wrote the day’s date in neat print with a 0.5mm black gel pen in her notebook instead (underlined with a ruler, of course).

***

Two weeks later, Professor Pankratz produced a hurdy gurdy whilst dressed as a bard. The latter of these two facts seemed the less strange.

It was… nothing like anything Maja had ever heard or seen before. Her classmates seemed to agree, judging by their confused whispers. “While we have discussed the production of sound in string instruments through bowing and the production of sound in keys, we are yet to meet the union of the two: the lovely hurdy-gurdy!” Professor Pankratz proclaimed proudly.

There was a moment of silence. Then Professor Pankratz started playing.

The sound was… indescribable. It wasn’t bad, per se, but it wasn’t a sound Maja had ever heard before. It was strangely pleasant. What  _ was _ strange was the way the good professor was playing it, with the strange… spinning thing on one side. And the keys on the other side. The fast, frenzied motions of his fingers seemed almost deranged.

His piece was short, no more than a minute or two, but it was enough to completely confound Maja. How did that thing  _ work? _

“Now, before we delve into the specific mechanisms of this fine instrument,” Professor Pankratz said, setting the hurdy-gurdy down gently, “I thought it a bit of fun to touch upon the hurdy-gurdy’s history on the continent. We’ve had them around for a long time - why, I remember them coming into fashion in the early eleventh century. This particular hurdy-gurdy is very dear to me. It once belonged to a man known as Valdo Marx, who, with the blessings of the gods, has had his name mysteriously erased from musical history. Now, for all of Marx’s peacocking and posturing, he could do one thing well, and that was play the hurdy-gurdy.

“However, young minds! Bear this in your thoughts - it is possible that this hurdy-gurdy was enchanted by the sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg to produce the most beautiful of sounds in order to spite Valdo Marx’s rival, the famed bard Jaskier.”

Oh. Jaskier. Maja had heard vaguely of Jaskier, in a dusty old book she had been reading for her history class in school. Wasn’t he the bard who had reformed the public perception of witchers, or something like that? She could vaguely remember that witchers were once viewed as mutants just as monstrous as the creatures they hunted, although that seemed like a load of poppycock now. Witchers were witchers, and the Continent needed them.

Yennefer of Vengerberg was definitely in the history books, in her part fighting the Battle of Sodden and later the defeat of the Wild Hunt. And something about that one girl - they were linked somehow. Did Yennefer of Vengerberg know Jaskier? Maja wasn’t sure. She was a physicist, not a historian.

“If there were enchantments on this hurdy-gurdy, I’m afraid they’ve long worn off, and Yennefer has refused to own up to casting any. What I can tell you for certain, however, is this hurdy-gurdy’s age and history! It was played by the bard Jaskier during the funeral of Emperor Emhyr var Emhreis in Kaedwen. Upon it he played  _ Aequilibrium _ , which I will play for you now, and as I do so, you can ponder upon the acoustics of this instrument and draw theories as to how it produces such sound.”

Maybe Professor Pankratz was just really into historical roleplay, Maja thought. Or LARP - maybe he played a bard in Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe it was a scheme to draw students’ attention to him - it seemed to be working. Well. Whatever the case, Professor Pankratz wasn’t doing the dead any harm by speaking of them. Maja shifted her focus to the little tune the professor was playing, taking care to note down her observations (colour coded, of course.)

***

The rest of the semester passed, more or less, uneventfully. After his introductory sessions, Professor Pankratz taught the class winds and brass up until Samhain, at which point the university broke up for the winter break. Maja took the train back to Kovir, and spent Samhain building bonfires with her cousins. She spent a considerable amount of time puzzling over her Physics 1A holiday work, and even more time puzzling over Physics 1B, before eventually packing up her bags and getting back on the train the week before the term started.

When Maja walked into Professor Pankratz’s class, she found him sitting on a chair in front of his desk holding the largest and most convoluted looking brass instrument Maja had ever seen in her entire life. There were far too many turns and bends to it, and it was nearly as tall as Professor Pankratz himself. How was anyone supposed to  _ play _ that thing?

“- I hope you had a restful break - take a seat, Maja - right then. Now, this lesson is actually meant to be on the string quartet, but I realised over the break that I hadn’t introduced this beauty to you last semester! It’s an excellent thing that Geralt reminded me, or I would’ve forgotten completely, and we can’t have that, can we. Can anybody tell me what this baby is called?”

Silence. Maja took a moment to wonder who Geralt was - Professor Pankratz’s housemate, perhaps? Or his brother, or just a friend.

“Yes, I thought you might say that. This is known as the serpent.” Professor Pankratz sealed his lips onto the mouthpiece and started playing. As far as Professor Pankratz’s strange musical instruments went, this… wasn’t too bad. It was fuller and clearer than most brass instruments, perhaps, and the amount of breath required to play it seemed genuinely painful, but it was nothing like the hurdy gurdy. Or - Melitele forbid - the bagpipes. It did make Maja wonder, though, where (and when) the hell Professor Pankratz had learnt the strange thing.

Professor Pankratz set the serpent down on a stand and stood up, beginning to pace up and down the room as usual, SmartBoard pen in hand. “You may find the history behind this particular serpent interesting. The serpent came into popularity quite recently, actually, only the 16th century or so. Have you ever heard of the bard Dandelion - hmm, I suppose not, not many people do - but anyway, Dandelion. Dandelion played the serpent in the courts of all Four Kingdoms, and just like that, every court bard worth their salt had a serpent in hand!” He chuckled to himself.

“This particular serpent, actually, was the one that Dandelion brought to the court of Temeria, the first time he played the serpent publicly. It’s a beautiful thing, don’t you think? See, here, take a look - you can see the flowers engraved into the metal - dandelions and buttercups, it was certainly custom-made for Dandelion…”

Professor Pankratz definitely had quite the imagination, Maja mused. It certainly made his lessons far more interesting, and, on this particular day, made up for his painfully neon green suit.

***

“You’ve heard of the piano. You’ve heard of the harpsichord. Now meet the wheelharp,” Professor Pankratz crowed. In front of his desk, there was something vaguely cylindrical and vaguely waist-high covered by a plain white cloth. With a flourish, Professor Pankratz whipped off the cloth, revealing… a barrel? With keys? And strings?

“The wheelharp has a very distinct sound,” Professor Pankratz continued. “You should be able to hear it from a mile away. For example, Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, we all know that suite on the piano, don’t we? Now, let’s hear it on the wheelharp.” Professor Pankratz started playing.

Immediately, Maja wanted to dunk her head underwater. It was the strangest, most horrific sound she had ever heard. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard, a dying whale, a bow with too much rosin all at once - or worse, bagpipes pretending to be a string instrument. She had to fight the urge to wince and cover her face. It sounded absolutely  _ horrible _ .

Around her, other students were having similar reactions, wincing and grimacing. “What the hell?” Nikolai, one of her friends, whispered to her. “That thing sounds possessed.” Maja nodded in agreement. Perhaps the sound would be enough to summon priestesses of Melitele and put a stop to Professor Pankratz.

Blessedly, Professor Pankratz stopped himself after a few bars. He seemed completely oblivious to his students’ horror. “And that, ladies and gents, is the wheelharp! It’s incredibly unique, wouldn’t you say?”

_ Uniquely painful _ , Maja thought to herself.

“As with all my instruments,” the professor continued obliviously, “this wheelharp has quite the history. It was discovered in an old storage room in Kaer Morhen, a witcher keep, in 1562, and, having gone through extensive magical doctoring by no other than the lovely Triss Merigold, has found itself in a perfectly playable state. What makes the wheelharp acoustically unique…”

Maja jotted down notes studiously. The faster she picked up on this lesson, the less likely she’d have to revisit it, and if it could be helped, Maja wanted to never hear a wheelharp again in her life. Professor Pankratz was trying to make the lesson slightly more bearable with the fun little backstory about the witcher keep, at least. Maja knew it wasn’t true; witchers were secretive, and besides, Kaer Morhen had been uninhabited for centuries. If there were Wolf witchers left, they weren’t in Kaer Morhen, and she certainly doubted any of them had played the  _ wheelharp _ .

***

When Maja sat down for her lecture, Professor Pankratz was practically beaming. “The lute is considered the forefather to modern plucked stringed instruments such as the guitar, and therefore the mechanism of its playing is not vastly different to that of a guitar, but it is certainly unique! The lute holds a very special place in my heart - it was the first instrument I ever learnt to play, you see - and so I wanted to introduce you to the different types of lute present throughout Continental history. Geralt!”

Maja… was not exactly sure that was part of the Oxenfurt Musical Acoustics curriculum, but she had learnt not to question her professor. Besides, she had heard older students whisper about The Great Lute Lesson, which, apparently, was a yearly deviation from acoustics and physics, and just an hour in which Professor Pankratz fanboyed over lutes. Apparently, he claimed to have  _ Filavandrel’s _ lute, which Maja just found ridiculous. Even if Filavandrel had actually existed, and not been a folk figure like the Kingslayer (who, some said, had been a witcher, which was also ridiculous - everyone knew that witchers only killed monsters), there was no way that a mere professor would be allowed to take out the lute and wave it around. No, Filavandrel’s lute, if it really existed, was probably locked away in a glass case somewhere.

Pankratz gestured widely, and a disgruntled looking man with white hair opened the lecture hall doors at the front of the room, and wheeled in a… unsurprisingly large cabinet. Oh. Was that the Geralt that Professor Pankratz had mentioned before? “Thank you, love,” Professor Pankratz said cheerily. With a flourish, he threw open the cabinet doors and gently removed a strangely almond-shaped lute. “Now, this is considered to be the oldest surviving model of what we now call the lute. This beauty is from Zerrikania - which I know for a fact by the way, because I saw it constructed in 862 - and you’ll notice it has an unusually long neck with an extremely distinct body shape. This gives the Zerrikanian lute a very unique sound - listen here -”

Professor Pankratz certainly had quite the imagination, Maja thought absent-mindedly. Seeing the first lute being made? That was just silly, but it certainly made things fun.

***

At the end of 2020’s Great Lute Lesson, Geralt stayed behind to help Jaskier pack away the small army of lutes he had back into the portable lute cabinet. It was Jaskier’s favourite lecture of the year, really, and he pulled out all the stops.

“Your students don’t actually believe all these lutes are real,” Geralt told Jaskier bluntly.

Jaskier made an offended noise. “What do you mean? Of course they’re real! They’re right here!”

“No, I mean -” Geralt waved one hand awkwardly. “They don’t believe you when you say that they’re  _ historical _ lutes.”

“Do they think I’m a liar with excellent replicas?” Jaskier asked, miffed.

“...Jaskier,” Geralt said slowly. “People… aren’t used to immortality.” Unfortunately, it was true. There were perhaps a handful of Higher Vampires roaming the Continent, and of course the mages of Aretuza and Ban Ard, but the new witcher schools and their mutagens were no longer lived than humans. There were still the old school witchers, but most of them were semi, if not completely, retired. Elves were almost completely gone - Jaskier and Geralt knew of one, perhaps two, still alive. Jaskier was used to having his loved ones come and go, but it didn’t hurt any less knowing his friends’ lifespans were only a blink compared to his. At least he still had Geralt, and Ciri, and even Yennefer, the bitch.

“Besides,” Geralt added, “people have no reason to think  _ you’re _ immortal.”

“I do blend in very well,” Jaskier said thoughtfully. Unlike some people, it went unsaid. It had taken Geralt twenty years to pick up a “telephone” after they were first invented, which had made hiring him for contracts  _ very _ hard, and even now he still had one of those horrible brick phones while Jaskier, Ciri, Yennefer, and the other witchers enjoyed shiny new smartphones.

Geralt carefully strapped away the 1562 Toussanti lute, then closed the cabinet doors. He slid the combination lock back in place, and Jaskier stepped away to move a stack of papers which looked one gust of air away from flying across the lecture hall.

“Will you be home for dinner?” Jaskier asked.

“Hmm.” Geralt nodded. “The leshen’s a bit far out, but Ciri can portal us there and back.” Jaskier chuckled, shaking his head slightly. Really, only those two saw monster hunting as an acceptable father-daughter bonding activity.

“See you then, love,” Jaskier said softly. Geralt leaned in for a quick, chaste kiss, a small smile on his face. He grasped the handles on the cabinet and wheeled it back out of the lecture hall to return it to their house, where the lutes would sit proudly in Jaskier’s study alongside the hundreds of other instruments the once-bard had accumulated over the years.

Jaskier hummed the tune to  _ Toss a Coin _ as he opened up the slideshow for his next lecture. It had been literal centuries since he had written the song, but it still held a special place in his heart. Did his students really not believe him when he told them the history behind each and every one of his instruments?

Oh well. It didn’t really matter; they seemed to enjoy his stories anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Aequilibrium (the piece Jaskier plays on the hurdy-gurdy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwyznoWJDHI&ab_channel=AndreyVinogradov
> 
> Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major on the wheelharp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT4OxLLI4m4&ab_channel=AntiquityMusicLLC
> 
> This is inspired by the fact that my boyfriend’s Acoustics lecturer keeps a few dozen string instruments in his office (which they saw over Zoom), and just randomly pulled out a Persian lute halfway through a lecture.
> 
> Please let me know if you spot any glaring typos!


End file.
